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The only people in Manhattan who are probably eager for a Sarah Palin presidential run are the supposed comedy writers at “Saturday Night Live.” Wall Street bankers, on the other hand, not so much. Big Money has been snarkily dismissive of Palin’s recent opining on monetary policy, the dollar and the dangers of inflation. But guess what? A “free-market populist” campaign in 2012 would likely further highlight that Palin’s not too big a fan of them, either. And her economic musings are yet another sign she’s running

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Wall Street always knew financial reform was coming. The big banks never really thought there was a chance of killing it, not that they really tried to. In fact, once the effort moved into 2009, they wanted it over sooner rather than later. The longer the process dragged out, the greater the chance of something crazy popping up and the more political and profit damage they took. For instance: The “break up the bank” movement was almost successful. As it is, the Volcker rules and derivatives reform may end up far tougher than their worst-case scenario.

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Binyamin Appelbaum of the NYT tries to simply things for me: ”Broadly speaking, there were two ways for the federal government to respond to the financial crisis. The Obama administration chose more regulation.”

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A sigh of relief is due on Wall Street. The procedural finale for the U.S. Senate’s debate on financial reform came just in time for the big banks. The bill just kept getting tougher as the talk dragged on. But it could have been worse. While banks’ future activities and profitability may get pinched, their core business model appears intact. In the end, Wall Street got nicked, not nuked. Some observations: